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The Real Writer vs. The Wannabe

Larry Correia, pulp-writer extraordinaire and one of my secret writing mentors, takes on another article by “the Guardian’s village idiot,” Damien Walters, which means it’s time to pop some corn and settle in to be entertained.

Some background: Mr. Walters is a contributor for the U.K. paper ‘The Guardian’ and self-styled professional writer. Not that he’s actually sold anything, but he gets a grant from the U.K. government to work on a novel. Judging by his Guardian output, Her Majesty’s Government is getting cheated again.

Meanwhile, Mr. Correia is a New York Times bestselling author with about a dozen novels published and many more under contract who ranks in the top 1% of authors in terms of the royalties he makes. His works include the rocking-good-fun Monster Hunter International series and the insanely-awesome Grimnoir Chronicles (which is basically the X-Men set in an alternate 1930s).

Mr. Walters periodically takes it upon himself to lecture Mr. Correia on what it means to be a successful writer, which is rather like if I tried to give, say, Chuck Norris advice on how to be a successful martial artist, except that I wouldn’t adopt a sneeringly dismissive tone and would actually try to research the subject first. Reading Mr. Correia’s replies are like watching a killer whale whacking a seal into the air over and over again.

Interpretive Re-Enactment

For example (Mr. Walters is in italics, Mr. Correia is in bold)

If you find meaning in straight-to-video Dolph Lundgren films, then Larry Correia’s novels will be your kind of read.

Wait… Is he comparing me to Dolph Lundgren, the ripped 160 IQ chemical engineer, turned Red Mother F****** Scorpion, Ivan “I Will Break You” Drago, and all around bad ass… as an insult?

…

In fact, much of the Monster Hunter series relies rather heavily on people the hero doesn’t like turning into monsters … so he can shoot them.

Another lie, but it just demonstrates that Damien merely skimmed the first chapter so he could fake a review.

The bit about the series relying heavily on people the hero doesn’t like turning into monsters so he can shoot them? I found out about this article when somebody shared it to the MHI fan page on Facebook. Nobody there could think of any other cases over five books where somebody the hero didn’t like turned into a monster so he could shoot them. The closest anyone could think of was the opposite happening.

You know what they say about assumptions, Damien? They say when you in particular make them you’re probably going to be wrong, because you’re a dope.

Speaking of assumptions, this is the same guy who published that I was a sexist/racist/homophobe, who when confronted for evidence, then crowd sourced a witch hunt of all my copious political writings to find something bad I’d said. And the best thing they could come up with was my teaching free self-defense classes to women (so they could shoot rapists in the face) was “victim blaming”.

By all means, read the whole thing. This is what happens when a wannabe writer tries to attack the real deal. Content warning, though: Mr. Correia does not mince words (this is the guy whose books include a scene involving werewolf-zombies and a giant snowblower: you do the math whether he’s appropriate for sensitive readers or not).